On Withdrawing Consent

The following is adapted from a comment on our Facebook page by Aaron Bennett.
The most important thing government needs is the consent of the so called “governed”. Without at least tacit support, the State is merely looked at as the enemy and tyrant by the people, and especially in so called democracies, the State needs to be looked at as legitimate by the people for it to survive. If individuals quit participating and consenting to government, the State fails.

The State is not a living entity, it merely is a group of humans acting in their own self interest. They have 2 arms, 2 eyes, 2 legs, no different than the individuals they purport to rule. So, one must ask, is it legitimate for a man to rule another man without his consent?

No it is not.

I contend that government is illegitimate.

The Lockean theory of government and the theory held by most founding Fathers was that government is instituted to protect private property. If we look at private property as even a man’s own conscience, and his very life as his property, we have a solid foundation at what is private property.

The problem with this theory of government protection is in order for the State to protect private property, it must first expropriate the very private property, (through taxation, which is the word the State uses for theft) from the very individuals it is supposed to protect.
In other words, the State has to steal through taxation in order to function in a way to keep individuals outside of government from stealing. Very much like a mafia, but I think this comparison even isn’t fair to the Mafia.

If an individual decides that he does not want to participate in the State’s protection, he finds very quickly that this is not a voluntary organization, you must accept the States so called protection, or you will be killed.

But we have just showed that the State is nothing but mere humans as actors of a collective, so what gives them the right to decide for you what you must and must not submit too?

Nothing gives them the “right”, but consent gives them the ability.

I propose, (and I am not bringing much original thought to this discussion, men much wiser than I will ever be have thought this out) that individuals remove their daily consent and tacit support of the State, to show that it is illegitimate.

We first quit looking at the State as legitimate, and we remove our consent by not participating with the State and the functions that the State claims can maintain or regain our Liberty.

We quit voting. We quit trying to get “our guy in”, we stop trying to pass the laws “we want”(no political law has ever brought about a net gain for Liberty). We mock all politicians, and people who work for the State, such as judges, prosecutors, cops, the military, all of them, as merely criminals in costumes, who have come to steal, kill, and destroy.

We ignore the State to the best of our ability. Not paying ones extortion fees, (taxes) is also a legitimate way of removing consent, but it is not good for one’s health at this time.

We educate ourselves and others about Liberty, we see that nothing is legitimate between humans that is not voluntary, including societies and government.

We see political law as invalid, people in jail for crimes against the State as political prisoners.

We see Natural Law as the only legitimate Law, Don’t harm another person’s property or person, and do all you say you will do, which is the only criminal and contract law that we need.

We learn the difference between government and governance.

We become individuals who neither want nor need the State.

We understand that aggression outside of self defense is wrong.

We quit fooling ourselves that “we are the government” or that this government is ours, or that state property is “all of our property”.

We see the State for what it is, our Enemy.

We hate the State for what it does, and look to the day when the State collapses on itself.

We all will have different ways of going about this, and I don’t disparage folks for going about this in their own way, but we should all have the same goal: The end of the State.

6 Comments Already

1) Consent does not give them the ability to rule you. There are two basic kinds of State: Ones based on legitimacy (validity in the eyes of the people) and ones based on fear. Democracies are legitimacy based; totalitarian police states are fear based. Both enable the sociopaths to rule the populace. When a democracy’s legitimacy is sufficiently eroded, the sociopaths move to the fear based model. (This is exactly what is taking place in the USA today.)

In the end it is their near-monopoly on force, and the relative defenselessness of the individual, that gives them the ability to rule.

2) “we should all have the same goal: The end of the State.”

Sorry, if freedom is the objective, then that is the wrong place to focus; it can lead to nothing but chronic frustration. The goal that leads to freedom is freeing oneself — objective self-empowerment. Not the new agey feel good variety, but anything – technology, service, methodology – that genuinely wrests back the power that is missing from one’s own life. Freedom means having the power to direct one’s own affairs and oversee the disposition of one’s own property without hindrance from others. Objective self-empowerment is the path to freedom, even in an unfree, State-dominated world.

Collective, top down efforts to “bring about” a free society by imposing freedom upon society, are as ludicrous as collective, top down efforts to “bring about” a prosperous economy by imposing prosperity upon the economy. Just as a prosperous economy arises spontaneously out of individuals everywhere each pursuing his or her own prosperity while abstaining from collective meddling in the economy, so a free society arises spontaneously out of individuals everywhere each pursuing his or her own freedom while abstaining from collective meddling in society.

Imagine if freedom lovers everywhere directed all of their available personal resources and attention to each empowering (freeing) his or her own self: The commercial marketplace would quickly rise to fill the massive and lucrative demand for self-empowerment resources and technologies. Technologies like Bitcoin and encryption would abound, bringing the welcome prospect of empowerment to all aspects of one’s life. The State would rapidly become irrelevant as individuals everywhere availed themselves of the proliferation of self-empowerment resources and technologies.

The end of the State can not come a day too soon. This can only happen when the focus is taken off the State, and directed at freeing oneself.

Sure, no problem.
And, by the way, this blog post (On Withdrawing Consent) is very well written, and the premise throughout, that the State is strengthened by assent and diminished by dissent, is spot on. Hopefully my previous comment did not detract too much from the message of the post, it was certainly not intended to.